shadows bleed and the locks will break
by arkhmknights
Summary: just when lydia thinks she's figured out the whole banshee thing, the world decides to drop a new surprise in her lap—namely, the ghost of her best friend. or most of her, at least. —allydia, malydia, multi, canon divergent.
1. Chapter I

**title:** shadows bleed and the locks will break  
 **summary:** just when lydia thinks she's figured out the whole banshee thing, the world decides to drop a new surprise in her lap—namely, the ghost of her best friend. or most of her, at least. —allydia, malydia, multi, canon divergent.  
 **word count:** ~2100  
 **cw:** canon character death, internalised homophobia (in later chapters)

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 **Chapter I**

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 _Time means nothing here._ Here _means nothing here, where nothing is solid, where voices and faces scatter when she reaches for them, where she is nothing but a flickering consciousness—a boat without sail or rudder at the mercy of a roiling sea of memory, but she no longer knows which are hers and which are someone else's. Maybe they're both._

 _There's a girl in the woods. Twice. One lopes across the forest floor, easy as breathing; the other stutters and trips, her hair matted with leaves and dirt. One howls at the moon, the other cries. Their eyes are almost human._

 _A man lays awake in—France?—staring at a family photograph. His daughter looks little like him, but she has the same smile. It hurts to look at, the sort of hurt which dredges up a thousand old hurts. For a moment, she pretends she can hold his hand, but it's only a moment before the storm rips her away again._

 _She can find purchase, if she looks hard enough._

 _She's over Scott's dead body. His blood stains the library floor and a part of her reaches towards him because if this is his end—if this is his end they can be_ together _now, but a stronger part of her feels sick because_ it's too soon it's too soon _and he can't_ die _like this, just a kid, not after everything, not like her. She pulls together all her strength and pins his writhing soul down to his body as best she can until his eyes flash open and he_ **ROARS** _—_

 _And she's spiralling away again, send tumbling by the force of it. Spinning through time and space without purchase, hands clawing at empty air. A fox creates dead bodies, grinning like a boy. A girl crushes wolfsbane in a charred room. Hunters pin their prey with arrows. A wolf howls in the woods, smearing his dress suit with dirt, his pain cracking the air in two._

 _It's panic and chaos and hurt and she's breaking apart in the hurricane and she just needs everything to—_

 _"_ **STOP!** _"_

 _—and everything does._

 _She's dizzy. Unsteady. Like an abrupt halt after a sprint. But for one calm moment she's found something to hold onto, and reality is stilled around her._

 _A hand, she realises. It's a hand, attached to an arm, attached to a half-dead girl with red hair who pales and shakes and stares at her like a woman condemned, and she knows her._

 _God. Allison_ knows _her._

 _"Lydia?"_

 _The banshee's eyes shimmer._

 _She opens her mouth and—_

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The alarm woke Lydia before her own scream could.

She found her lips stretched back in preparation for the throat-tearing cry, white-knuckled hands fisted into the bedsheets, but the premature waking trapped it in her throat. She _choked_ , curling around the unsteady, quickening palpitations of her heart with her trembling hands pressed to her sternum and her eyes wide in the early light.

She hadn't dreamt about Allison in weeks.

She closed her eyes and took careful, even breaths until her heart slowed down and she could sit up. But the movement made her wince, massaging her temples; the unsung scream seemed to have been caged in her skull and roared against its walls with a vengeance, because that's _exactly_ what she needed the morning before a French quiz, _clearly_. Some freaky supernatural migraine from dreaming about her dead best friend.

This felt— _different_ , though. Not like her usual nightmares.

For one thing, those rarely made her scream like that.

Maybe she wasn't quite the expert on banshee abilities she'd like to be, but she'd lived as one long enough to take notes. Her screams, they weren't triggered by just anything—it had to be death, _real_ death, either present or imminent. Allison died a year ago. Her scream had come and gone, lost to the unmarked graveyard of Oak Creek.

The memory of the dream was sickeningly fresh: Allison clutching Lydia's hand as if it were the only solid point in a storm, dark hair framing gaunt cheeks, eyes too large and brown in her black-and-white face. She'd spoken one word, just one, and that was when Lydia woke up. Fairly tame as far as her dreams went, but something about it unsettled her; her stomach rolled and her mouth was drier than a bad hangover, and she'd had more than enough to know. Groaning, she groped blindly for the painkillers on her bedside table and downed enough to (hopefully) dull the headache to a mild throb.

"Lydia!" Her mom, calling up the stairs. "Hurry up if you want to use the shower. We'll _both_ be late for school."

Right. School.

That thing _normal_ people worry about.

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Malia blinked at her. "So she just...said your name, and left? That doesn't sound so bad."

"It wasn't really what _happened_ in the dream," Lydia said. "It was the way it felt. Like she was real. "

"But she can't be. Unless there's another Kate Argent situation, and from what you guys told me that's not likely." Only Malia, with her distance and harsh manner, could be so blunt about the subject. In an odd way, Lydia appreciated it—not having to dance around someone else's grief—even if Malia's suggestion stirred Lydia's own, heart squeezing in her ribs. She clutched her books tighter to her chest as if to hide its painful juddering.

"It's _not_ like Kate. I don't know what it is. Or what it means."

"You could talk to Scott," Malia supplied, rooting around in her locker. Lydia stared at her.

"I can't tell him I'm dreaming about his _dead ex_. I mean, he just lost Kira." They all had. Or that's how it felt, at least, and God knew his girlfriend's absence must have been worse for Scott than anybody else. Knowing Kira's time in the desert was limited helped little when they couldn't know how long she'd be gone. Months, years— _decades_ —it'd stretch the most dedicated long-distance relationship.

"Okay, fair enough," Malia said. "But why tell me?"

She hesitated. _Because you're the first person I wanted to tell,_ she thought. _Because I trust your judgement. Because...I don't know._ "You didn't know her like the rest of us did," was what she actually said. "You can be pragmatic, I guess."

"Liam and Mason didn't know her either." Before Lydia could rebuke that, Malia frowned. "Do ghosts exist? They don't, right?"

"No," Lydia said automatically, but she paused. "The bestiary never mentioned them. Neither did Meredith."

"Since when has Meredith ever been clear about anything?" Malia said dryly. Her locker shut with unnecessary force. "I'm just saying, maybe there's more to the whole banshee thing that you don't know about yet. Maybe that _no one_ knows. It's possible, isn't it?"

Lydia's pulse picked up. Her temples throbbed. "Maybe," she whispered.

The bell rung. Lydia flinched sharply, the shrill sound cutting right through her, and Malia's brow furrowed in concern. Any other time, Lydia might have liked it. "You okay?"

"I'm fine. Let's just get to class."

In her head, the noise only grew louder.

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 _Do ghosts exist?_

Lydia wasn't particularly prone to nervous habits. But this was her third abused pen lid in the hour; she worried it mercilessly with her teeth, intent on the notes in her margins. The headache made it hard to concentrate.

This was stupid. The dream was probably nothing. Not a ghost. Not a sign of impending doom upon Beacon Hills (again). Just some freaky post-traumatic response to—to the Beast, to Theo, to all of the bullshit at Eichen House. Allison was only on her mind because of what Stiles had said, that's all.

But since when had _anything_ been _nothing_ in Beacon Hills?

 _Do ghosts exist?_

"We always seem to find each other anyway," Lydia murmured, lips barely moving. "Even Allison." What if Stiles were right about that?

"Something you want to share with the class, Lydia?"

Ms Flemming interrupted her thoughts, hands on her hips with a stern mouth. Lydia glanced up, then frowned at the equations on the board for a moment.

"One hundred and six," she said. "Twenty seven point three. Seventeen."

Ms Flemming blinked. She checked her notes. Her praise was begrudging. "Ah. Well. Good work, Lydia."

Lydia smiled thinly. She ducked her head back into her notebook.

 _Do ghosts exist?_ Or was she only clinging to a throwaway suggestion, the false hope that it were possible to see Allison again? She had to be practical about this, no matter how much it might hurt. Perhaps someone _had_ died last night. Perhaps that's who she'd almost screamed for, and Allison's face was a warning—another oni attack? God forbid, another _kitsune_ attack? They'd barely recovered from the Dread Doctors. She could ask the Sheriff later if any bodies had been found, but...

Lydia tapped the pen rapidly against paper, scanning her bullet points. _Dreams (visions?) of Allison. Banshee scream. Ghosts? Voices at Oak Creek? Oni? Eichen House?_

Gingerly, Lydia felt the side of her head. _There._ The indent, where Valack had carved a hole into her skull to amplify her abilities. Her stomach shifted unpleasantly at the mere thought of it, as it always did, but she swallowed her nausea and tacked onto the last point: _aftereffects?_

She was the only banshee she knew to survive Valack's procedure. That might mean something.

But the noise hadn't gone away. Lydia squeezed her eyes shut, breathing through her teeth, while a few seats away Malia and Stiles fired less-than-subtle looks in her direction.

This always happened. Every damn time. Just when Lydia thought she had a handle on her abilities, the supernatural flung her a curveball. She was a scientist. A mathematician. A social climber. She noticed patterns, tested them, and observed the effects: hydrogen plus oxygen plus heat made water, ten was the square root of a hundred, dating the lacrosse captain made you the queen bee. Strategy. Logic. _Simple._

There was no scientific procedure for the whispers she heard, no formula for her attraction to death, no biological explanation for her glass-shattering voice. She was fumbling in the dark, treading the tightrope of her own sanity, and anyone who could possibly help her understand had long since lost their balance.

Her nails dug into her hair. Her mouth became a grimace. There was pressure in her throat.

God, the _frustration_. It made her want to—to—

"I need the bathroom!" she blurted out, bursting to her feet, and Ms Flemming was startled enough to nod instantly. Lydia was out of the door in a second, too quick to notice Malia's outstretched hand.

The hallway was empty. Thank God. Lydia bit her lip and worried her wrist as she darted into the girls' room, the picture of distress but no one to bear witness; the whispers about her which began after her two-day fugue in the woods had never entirely died down, and she had no wish to give them fresh kindling. The bathroom was empty too. She'd think someone up there was smiling down on her, but she knew her own luck better than that.

She picked the third mirror along, because it seemed right, and braced her hands against the sink with her eyes closed to focus her breathing. It had been hours and the painkillers had worn off, or the roar was getting stronger, or both. She felt it wriggling up her throat and locked her lips—not at school, not _again_ —but the longer she fought it, the less certain she was that it belonged to her.

 _All the scream does,_ she thought, _is help drown out the noise._ Maybe if she listened carefully, she wouldn't _need_ the scream, and it would wither away, and she'd understand what the hell was happening. Wasn't it worth a shot?

She tightened her grip on the sink, exhaling slowly through her nose. Her neck strained. _I'm here,_ she braved. _I'm listening._

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the distant ambience of school began, gradually, to fade. The temperature of the bathroom dropped. Goosebumps rippled across Lydia's bare arms, something like static raising the downy hair on the nape of her neck, and she sensed her breath frosting in the air before her. The scream buzzed impatiently in her skull as it grew louder and louder and—no, not louder. _Closer._

Her breathing picked up and she leaned forward, _into_ the noise, nose almost bumping the mirror's surface. She was close. So close.

And it wasn't her voice.

The realisation trickled like ice down her spine. She recognised it. She _knew_ that voice.

Her words were less than a whisper. "Allison?"

A weight settled around her neck. Her eyes flashed open and met those only centimetres away in the fogged mirror: warm brown, ringed with hazel and framed with thick black lashes. A sharp jaw. A smattering of freckles. Dimples when she smiled.

An impossible reflection.

"Lydia," Allison said, voice thick with relief. "I found you."

Lydia's heart stopped.

She opened her mouth and _screamed_.

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	2. Chapter II

**word count:** ~2600  
 **cw:** injury, minor paranoia/unreality

* * *

 **Chapter II**

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 _I found you._

Shades howled in her ears. There were teeth in her throat.

 _Lydia._

The grass clotted with blood.

 _Lydia, honey, it's okay. Lydia?_

She came with Stiles, but she'd promised for Allison.

"Please, Lydia, look at me. Open your eyes."

The tile was cold on her cheek, and damp. She tightened her grip on the grass and gasped silently when it cut. Not grass. Glass. It was glass. Her fingers stung, her face and neck stung, her throat tender and raw. The howls were only hushed murmurs, humming unintelligibly at the edge of her awareness, and only one voice of dozens breached her cloudy thoughts. Her breath was wispy as her eyes fluttered open. She hadn't even realised they were closed, or that she was trembling.

She was curled on the floor of the school bathroom in a pool of broken glass, and it took Lydia a moment to recall how she'd landed there. She blinked rapidly—lashes wet—at her mother's hovering, anxious face. "Lydia, sweetheart, are you alright?"

"Mom." Her voice scratched. Her eyes roamed past her mother's face to the crowd of students beyond, jostling in the narrow doorway to see past each other's shoulders (so much for no witnesses). A few of the faces leapt at her: Stiles and Scott, with twin expressions of concern (it was so clear, sometimes, that they'd half raised each other). Malia beside them, with that intense look which passed for worry on her features. Possibly Mason, hidden by taller bodies. And near him—

Lydia stared. Transfixed. Paling. Allison gazed wordlessly back from the crowd like a wraith—a fucking Shakespearian ghost of irony.

"Lydia?" Her mother's voice could have come from miles away, but it startled Lydia anyway, snapping her away from the cruel vision. She parted her lips and spoke in a breathless, tenuous voice:

"I'm fine. I just...I was...dizzy. I'm fine."

The whispers intensified. Her mother pressed her mouth into a thin line, that knowing spark in her eye. An explanation was painfully obvious to anyone in the know. But the moment passed, and Natalie Martin quickly returned to what she did best. "You must have had another dizzy spell," she declared, as if it were obvious. "You fell into the mirror. It shocked you, that's why you yelled. There's nothing to see," she added for the benefit of the crowd, voice picking up. "All of you, back to class. _Now._ "

 _Fell into every mirror?_ someone muttered, but the students reluctantly scattered. Lydia had bigger concerns at the moment, and only a fraction of her old pride, but still couldn't quite help the stab of shame knowing how gossip and rumours would flare again after her first public banshee display in well over a year ( _roll up, roll up, come see the disgraced Queen Lydia! mad girl of Beacon Hills! oh, how the mighty fall!_ ). Worst still were the faces of her friends, lingering after the rest of the crowd until her mother served stern enough glares (and Lydia motioned emphatically to _go, it's fine, I'm okay_ ). Scott and Malia shared meaningful glances as they slunk away, and Stiles mouthed at Lydia to call him. Only one was left.

"Let's get you cleaned up, honey." Her mother lifted her to her feet when they'd disappeared, bearing her weight into the hall, and Lydia was still too blindsided to protest. "Oh, your poor face! This way, to the nurse's office. All those mirrors…"

"It wasn't me," Lydia murmured, and Natalie made soothing noises.

"Of course not, sweetheart."

But Lydia couldn't stop staring at Allison's eyes disappearing down the hall, heavy with something strange and inexplicable. "It wasn't me."

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The nurse deemed her cuts superficial (a miracle considering the property damage), easily cleaned and treated, but furrowed his brow over Lydia's so-called _dizzy spell_. Still, with a little persuasion from Natalie he wrote Lydia permission to take the rest of the day off, and Natalie drove her home with strict, maternal orders to get some rest. She didn't ask about the scream. She didn't ask what Lydia had seen in the mirror.

Lydia knew that her mother, at least, would _never_ ask.

She either loved or hated her for it.

Natalie had to return for final period, so Lydia had the house to herself. Only not even _that_ was a certainty anymore. Pacing her bedroom, she bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder before checking her phone: three texts and one missed call, from Scott and Stiles. Her manicured thumb hovered over the call back button, but what the hell would she say? _Sorry to scare you, I just freaked out at Allison's ghost?_ After careful deliberation, she texted Scott: _i'm ok. talk later._ No need to reply to Stiles. He'd see it too.

When she turned around, Allison was sitting on her bed.

They both froze, rabbit-like. Allison stared back as if Lydia were the ghost, wearing the same dark clothes as the day she'd died, and breathing suddenly became an arduous task. Lydia exhaled shakily, eyes wide. Allison was an old photograph, cut out and superimposed onto reality—desaturated and grainy and strangely flat, perched on the mattress in an odd way, as if she were only mimicking the action. Only her eyes seemed to have any depth. The air around her, too, crackled as if rebelling against the unnatural presence.

They both opened their mouths at the same time. Lydia said, "I don't understand," at the same time that Allison said, "I'm sorry."

More than anything else, Allison's familiar tone was a punch to the gut. It rang clear as if from her own head. Allison spoke quickly while Lydia was winded. "Lydia, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't...I didn't want to scare you. I didn't mean to break those mirrors. It just happened."

After a moment, Lydia discovered her words again. "You died."

A flash of guilt. "I guess I did."

"You died, Allison. A year ago. I screamed for you."

"I heard it. I'm...I'm sorry."

Allison reached out, and Lydia couldn't help but step back. Allison flinched. "Are you real?" Lydia whispered. "Are you actually Allison?"

Allison hesitated to answer, and that was too much for Lydia. Way, way too much. She covered her face with her hands. "No. No, I can't do this. I'm not doing this again."

"Lydia—"

"No! I _screamed_ for you!" It still hurt to speak and her voice cracked with the volume but she couldn't help it, panic making her shrill. "You were dead and I _moved on!_ People don't just come back!"

 _Peter did,_ a treacherous voice said. And how did that start? _Hallucinations._ Visions of a dead man. Peter in the mirror, Peter in the classroom, Peter in the charred and ruined house. All leading up to Lydia doing something terrible. She gripped her head, thoughts spinning—Meredith, her grandma, both driven insane by their gift, institutionalised for life. And Lydia, little Lydia, poor Lydia, always waiting her turn.

She remembered the way reality broke and distorted around her at Eichen House—the closest she'd ever come to losing her mind. She thought she'd escaped with it intact.

Maybe Lydia was the only one here, and this was Valack's final act of cruelty.

"Lydia, look at me." Something icy bit into her wrists—Allison, attempting to take her hands away from her head—and Lydia shuddered. The girl passed right through her. "I'm here. I'm _here_. It's really me. You're _not_ crazy. I know you're thinking it, but you're not."

Lydia pulled away. "Then why are you _here_? Why _now_?"

Allison stared helplessly. Her shape flickered. "I don't know. I'm sorry."

"Stop _saying_ —"

Someone hammered on the front door. Lydia flinched, and Allison's entire body blinked away in alarm. Warm air seemed to rush into the vacuum she left, and Lydia's stomach flipped at the abrupt feeling of _alone_. Lydia hurried to the window and found Malia, shifting back and forth on the porch; she caught Lydia's eye before Lydia could duck out of view and waved impatiently. Lydia's heart kicked. _Why is she here?_

" _C'mon_ , Lydia, let me in."

She couldn't turn her away, not _now_. It'd look so much worse. Lydia tried to slow her breathing as she checked her makeup in the mirror—taking a moment to fix her tear-smudged mascara—and, steeling herself, went downstairs to open the door.

Malia screwed her nose the second she did. "You stink."

Translation: she could read Lydia's anxiety a mile away. "Wow, thanks. Aren't you supposed to be in History right now?"

"Yeah?" Malia said, as if it had no bearing on anything. Lydia, sighing, stepped aside. Shoulders back, chin forward, arms laced—every defense raised. _Teacher Lydia,_ Stiles called it. Only when he thought she couldn't hear, though.

"So why are you skipping? I thought you were trying to bring your grade up."

Curiously, it was Malia's turn to hesitate—she buried her hands in her pockets as she sauntered into Lydia's home, a valiant attempt at nonchalance. Unfortunately for her, she was one of the most abysmal liars Lydia had ever met, though not for lack of trying. "You kinda freaked the others out back there," she said. "I thought they'd want someone to check on you. And we all want to know what the hell that scream was. Who were you talking to just now?"

Lydia blinked, frowned. "You were eavesdropping?"

"Hey, _you_ were yelling."

"I was on the phone."

"I would've heard it." Malia tipped her head in that strange animal way, eyes intense. Before Lydia could scramble for an excuse, she said, "Is this about that Allison thing you talked about?"

Lydia's pulse stuttered, and Malia's eyes widened. "It is. Isn't it?"

And screw Scott for ever teaching her that trick. Lydia bit her lip, then—resigned—motioned for Malia to follow her upstairs. Prada snarled defensively at Malia when she passed, but the werecoyote was too used to it to care. "Well?" she said, the moment Lydia closed her bedroom door.

Lydia's hands twitched at her stomach. She paced a few more times, Malia's eyes following her unerringly, before bringing herself to say: "I saw Allison."

"Yeah. You already told me that."

"No. I saw her in the bathroom. In the mirror. And in the hallway. And in my room. She talked to me."

Malia stared for a long, long moment. Lydia was half-braced for Malia to roll her eyes and dismiss the idea entirely,. Of course, their lives were too fucking weird for that. "So I was right? Ghosts exist?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

"Well, what _else_ could it be?"

Lydia hesitated, but her phone saved her from answering—her ringtone cut the tension in the air, and when she looked it was Scott's name. Fantastic. She drew an unsteady breath and answered.

" _Lydia._ "

"Hi, Scott." And just like that, the chill was back. That strange weight around her neck became more pronounced. Allison was listening. "I'm fine, before you say anything. Just a sore throat."

" _But you screamed._ "

"I noticed," she said curtly.

" _Look, if something's wrong, if you saw something, you can tell us. We're a team, remember?_ "

Oh, great, the friendship card. Because she needed to feel even guiltier. She had to wonder, sometimes, if Scott realised how shaming his absolute, enviable _goodness_ could be, and for a brief second Lydia considered telling the truth. Then reason / kindness / cowardice took the wheel. "Well, you can stop worrying. There's nothing to tell."

" _But you don't scream unless there's something wrong. Usually something supernatural._ "

"Not this time."

" _But—_ "

"It was Valack, okay? I saw Valack."

She couldn't remember the last time she'd lied to Scott—certainly about anything this _huge_ —and if nothing else, at least he wasn't there to catch her in it, or look at her the way Malia was looking at her now from her seat on the bed (exactly where Allison had been ten minutes ago). As if Lydia had just told Scott she'd slept with his girlfriend, or that he was adopted, or something. On the other end of the line, Scott seemed taken aback, processing the surprising answer. " _Lydia, Valack's dead._ "

A word which meant less and less lately.

"Yeah, I noticed that too. That's why I didn't want to say anything."

" _I don't understand._ "

She closed her eyes and wrestled her pride to the floor. "I've...been seeing him since...what he did to me. At Eichen. I thought I saw him in the mirror and I panicked. I didn't mean to scream."

" _Lydia, I...I didn't know. I'm sorry._ "

"Don't be. It's not your fault." Was there a special circle in hell for abusing Scott McCall's trusting nature? Probably. She'd just earned a VIP ticket, right next to Theo Raeken. "It's just something I have to deal with alone."

" _Okay. If you're sure. Look, I'm here if you need anything. We all are._ "

Her stomach rolled, Allison's disappointment nauseatingly palpable. She tried to put it out of her mind, to ignore the lingering sensation of being watched. "I know. We'll talk tomorrow, okay?"

Malia was still staring at her as she signed off the call. Lydia sighed. "Please don't."

"I won't. If you tell me why you _lied_ to him."

"It's complicated."

"Too complicated for me?"

" _No_ , that's not what I—" Lydia massaged her temples. "I don't know what's going on, Malia. I don't know if this is permanent or real, I don't know if it's _dangerous_ , all I know is that this would completely screw with Scott if he knew, alright? He never totally got over losing her. He's still heartbroken about Kira. This would _crush_ him. I won't let it unless I have to."

The sharp edge in Malia's eyes faded a little. She looked down at her hands, resting in her lap.

"If something tries to kill us, I'll tell Scott," Lydia promised. "Until then, I need you to _swear_ to keep this secret. From everyone."

Malia scrunched her face. "I'm not really good at that."

"You've kept secrets before."

"Yeah, but I'm not _good_ at it," she insisted.

Drastic measures. Lydia swallowed and leaned down, grasping Malia's cold hands (ignoring the hitch in her chest—nerves, probably, frayed after everything that had happened today) and hitting Malia with the sincerest face she could muster. " _Please._ For Scott. For me." _For Stiles,_ she almost added, but thought better of it. Raw subject.

And Malia visibly wavered. " _Fine,_ " she huffed, with a childish pout which could have been charming. "I won't say anything. But what are you gonna do? Just wait for it to go away?"

It wasn't a relief, exactly. More like a slight easing of the dread that had been building since her uneasy, abrupt wakeup that morning, but it was something—one less tiny thing to worry about. She rocked back, released a caught breath, rubbing her wrist as she wandered to the window. It was still daylight, the sun holding the neighbourhood in a lazy warmth and spilling onto Lydia's carpet, but she felt none of it; a wintry chill still curled around her and she sensed two pairs of eyes on the nape of her neck. If she turned around, she suspected she'd see dark eyes in the far corner. She didn't turn around.

Little Lydia. _Smart_ Lydia.

Something was there. It _had_ to be. The second she believed otherwise was the second she truly went insane.

Which meant investigating.

"No." She set her jaw, eyes steely. "I'm gonna find someone who'll give me answers."

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	3. Chapter III

**word count:** ~2300  
 **cw:** heavily implied psychiatric abuse

 **important update!** i've decided this is the last story i'm gonna be posting on ff. i'm going to keep updating it here because i already started, but when it's done i'm moving entirely to ao3 (where this fic is also being posted) under the name **arkhmknights**!

* * *

 **Chapter III**

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Like its owner, Beacon Hills Animal Clinic was remarkably unassuming in the daylight. Small, bright and virtually unblemished, which was a small miracle considering everything those walls had thrown at them—a hoard of supernatural creatures, usually injured, frequently pissed. Lydia had been all three at different points. Deaton was just waving off a mother-and-daughter pair, carting a calico cat with an Elizabethan collar, when he noticed Lydia's approach; that trademark stillwater smile became mild concern when she stepped close enough for the man to see her face. "Lydia? You're hurt."

Lydia pursed her red lips, waving a hand, an implicit _I don't want to talk about it_ gesture. She'd tidied up a little before driving here ( _alone_ , despite Malia's insistence, because hell if she'd would let Malia ruin the streak of good grades Lydia had tutored so hard for by skipping for Lydia's sake)—reapplied makeup, fixed hair, an undamaged dress—but there wasn't exactly much she could do about the glass cuts. They were shallow, anyway. They'd heal soon enough. Not werewolf-quick, but she'd take what she could get. "It's nothing."

Something indecipherable passed behind Deaton's eyes, then he nodded. "I'm afraid Scott won't be here for a few more hours. Unless there was something you needed? How is Prada doing?"

Perfect. No audience. "Prada's fine. The medicine's working." She hesitated, which Deaton sensed as his cue to hold the door open; Lydia ducked into the clinic with a grateful twitch of the head.

"So," he said, surreptitiously switching the sign to _closed_ behind her, "how can I help?"

Logically, Lydia knew the shade of the clinic would be cooler than the sunlight outdoors. Still, her skin didn't register any change; the chill was constant in a way that she couldn't seem to shake, and she had to wonder if the—if Allison—assuming it _was_ Allison—had been trailing her the entire journey, and if she had any choice about it. Lydia worried her hands a little as she wandered further into the hall, unable to totally quell the anxious knot in her throat. For his part, Deaton was calm as always, betraying nothing with his even expression, not even suspicion. Stiles and Malia found his controlled serenity unnerving. Scott found it grounding. Lydia could only be envious.

"How much do you know about banshees?" she said, skipping the preamble.

Deaton barely blinked. "I'll admit, they aren't my expertise. Your kind are far rarer to come by than werewolves."

 _Don't I feel special._ "But you know _some_ things," she pressed, because he _had_ to. She'd consumed everything the bestiary had to say about banshees long ago, which amounted to frustratingly little. Banshees were human women with supernatural senses; beyond that it was usually a familial trait, and that banshee cries could be deadly if wielded correctly (which she hadn't understood, at the time), all the bestiary was concerned with was the fact that banshees had the same physical weaknesses as any ordinary person. Gerard even left a charming footnote: _easy prey, if you catch them from behind_.

If not Deaton, there was only one other place she could think to seek answers. Like _hell_ was she stepping foot there again.

Deaton braced himself against the reception desk. "I suppose I might be able to offer some information, though I'm not sure it's more than you already know. But why ask now?"

"I've been thinking about the things I hear. Things I've heard, really." She twisted a ring on her right hand. She'd read, somewhere, that the most effective liars told the truth. "At Oak Creek...and Eichen."

He furrowed his brow a little.

"Dozens of people died at Oak Creek. Murdered by the nogitsune. I heard them, when he was keeping me there. Like their voices were trapped in the walls. But that happened seventy years ago." This was the part she'd rehearsed in the car, until she could recite the whole thing with an even detachment which was impressive even for her. "And at Eichen House. I heard voices there, too. Valack's old victims, trying to help me, I think."

"I see. You want to understand how you could hear those things," he said. "Things unrelated to immediate death."

Close enough. She nodded, and after a brief moment's thought Deaton motioned her into his office to sit down with him. He passed her a glass of water without waiting to ask, so icy that the glass condensed immediately, and for the first time in an hour Lydia felt the bite of something colder than she was. She gripped the glass in both hands.

"For all our learning," Deaton began, slowly, "druids can't claim to be experts on death. But life is something we understand. It's a tangible energy, though beyond even scientific understanding. Something which pulses in the earth, through the intersections of ley lines, and in living bodies. On the other side of the coin, death is an energy as well. This is the energy you're drawn to in corpses, Lydia, before that energy dissipates back into the earth."

Lydia focused on the word _energy_ , clung to it like a blanket. Magic was too wispy a concept for her liking, but energy? Energy could be measured. Energy could be quantified. She leaned forward in her chair, elbows against her thighs, as Deaton kept going.

"Places like Oak Creek—where an abundance of death happens in a relatively short time—can become saturated with that energy, so that it doesn't fade as quickly. It lingers."

Lydia turned the glass in her fingers, frowning at the rippling surface. "So," she said, "this...energy. It's what's left of people who've died."

"Exactly."

"Like a soul."

"In a way, yes."

Souls and ghosts. Same idea, different packaging. Lydia did her best to ignore the quickening of her pulse and the tightness of her chest as she forced herself to pause, as if a thought were just occurring to her. "So if this energy goes back to the earth, that means it still exists somewhere. The _people_ still exist."

Deaton hesitated. "In theory."

"In _theory_?"

It no longer felt like her own breath in her throat. Something like nails dug into her shoulder, a shiftless weight leaning over her, listening even more intently than Lydia was. It made her nauseous, made her skin tight and crawling. She took a swig of ice water and fought not to shake or bend under the gravity, but she felt pale. Very pale.

"You need to realise that death is not a well understood thing. Like I told you, druids specialise in _life_ energy, not its opposite. Even among banshees, or those we know about, it's unheard of to have enough power to perceive _through_ the veil between life and death. To be sensitive, _powerful_ enough to sense individual souls, if they still exist in any self-conscious way." Deaton laced his fingers together. His furrowed brow bordered on concern—the last thing she wanted to deal with. "Lydia, are you alright?"

 _Energy-soul-life-death-opposite_ —her mind ached, straining beneath so many thoughts, her migraine threatening revenge. It took some force to drag herself back to Deaton's question. A blink, a swallow, eyes drifting to meet the veterinarian's; her lips parted and she responded in a voice which seemed distant, somehow. Disconnected. "I'm fine."

"Are you...planning something?"

Her hackles rose, just a little. "I'm not an idiot," she said cooly, which was the truth.

Not an idiot. Just the wrong goddamn girl with the wrong goddamn ability. Just a beacon for death, drawing it in like moth to flame, hovering and beating and _closer_ and dauntless. Just a girl who spoke a language she wished she didn't. Power, it came back to power again, it _always_ came back to _power_. Power which found Lydia whether she chased it or not.

What would be the point in planning anything? The dead always landed on her doorstep sooner or later, with or without her help, and they always had something to declare.

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Eichen House was, in her mind, a black and smudgy thing.

Her memories of the place (of its _special unit_ ) fractured and spun and flaked elusively to the touch, which was either a good thing or bad thing depending on Lydia's lurching mood. She resented the yawning black hole in her memories, the days and days lost to hazy fear without comprehension—until she snatched a glimpse of those days (a flare of pain, or a churning drill, or Aiden's smile), and became abruptly, _intensely_ grateful not to know more. Some pasts were best left there.

She remembered enough, though, to string it all together.

After the woods—after Theo's claws scraping the base of her skull—there were voices, bleeding panic into the air. She didn't know what they were panicking about. Lights flickered above her and she stared and stared and stared but couldn't find the pattern. They were trying to tell her something. They were trying to _tell her something_. The light blinked through her. Pried her apart and strung her across the examination table—pieces of her pinned and fluttering and labelled this part _girl_ that part _graveyard_ that part _Allison_ —

( _Who?_ )

This girl wasn't Allison. Her eyes were too wide and her hair too tight and coily but as Lydia lay immobile, she slowly wrapped her hands around Lydia's neck and squeezed and _squeezed_ until a scream came out.

Because Malia was in danger.

It was her only rock in the storm. _Malia needs help._

So she screamed. The lights popped and rained glass down her face but Malia was _running_ and so was Lydia—two girls' legs wheeling in unison, feet beating the forest floor and they swatted men aside like flies. Malia's growl tore Lydia's throat.

Malia broke away.

Lydia didn't.

Before Lydia could understand why, she was underground again—shackled and buried. Her jailor murmured soothing words as he twisted the knife into her head until it cut clean through.

It was like a dam crumbling. Or a tsunami, collapsing. Or smashing glass.

Just like that, she could hear _everything_.

Her skull became a cavern of anguished screams, fighting to escape first—an entire fucking world bleeding out at her feet. Voices of the dead and voices of the dying and voices of people still alive, people she _knew_ , but not for long. Oh God, not for long. Oh God. Oh God.

Somewhere among the din, a pair of hands pushed through. For a moment—one _tiny_ moment—they swept the noise aside, their fingers a feather-light touch on Lydia's cheeks, and Lydia wheeled her teary gaze up to the face they belonged to. The eyes.

 _Hold on Lydia. I'm so sorry, just, please, hold on a little longer. They're coming to get you._

Lydia parted her lips. She tasted salt. With her mouth she shaped, "Promise?"

 _I promise_.

She choked back a sob. She grabbed their hand.

She held on.

She held on.

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"Did you find what you need?"

Lydia had been bracing herself for that voice, but it still came as a cold shock. She shuddered, though didn't turn around, too aware that Deaton might still be watching from the windows. She might have imagined it, but he seemed a little suspicious (which was always a risk, but a calculated one—Deaton wouldn't say anything, not without anything concrete). She opened her car door without another word, stepping inside and starting the engine.

She sensed Allison move into the passenger seat. More specifically, she felt the air inches to her right drop drastically in temperature; clenching her jaw, she activated the car heater as she pulled out of the car park.

"Can't you at least _look_ at me?" Allison said.

"What's to look at?"

"God, Lydia, _please_. I feel like I'm going _insane_."

"Oh! _You_ feel like you're going insane!" Lydia snapped, keeping her eyes glued to the road ahead. Her voice climbed shrilly, her grip on the wheel white-knuckled, and she was skirting a little too close to the speed limit. "That must be _so hard_ for you!"

They lapsed into tense silence. It gave Lydia a moment to slow her breath and relax her fingers, to try to focus on feeling the warmth of the car. It almost worked. Almost, but not quite.

When Allison spoke again, her voice was small.

"I don't...I don't feel real. Please, Lydia, look at me."

Lydia's stomach twisted. _Because you're not real,_ she thought—but without conviction, because suddenly Allison sounded so _tired_. A kind of post-funeral, post-shattering tired. It flung her back to the early days—before the pack, before the nogitsune or the darach—to Allison, in black, after her mother's death. Angry and weary and distant. Lydia tasted it on the back of her tongue, Allison's emotions tangling with her own.

She stopped at a red light. Exhaling slowly, she peered at Allison out of the corner of her eye.

Allison sat all in black again, hands fisted against her knees, arms rigid; her eyes were wide and frightened. In Lydia's peripheral vision, Allison almost looked alive.

"Did you find what you need?" she asked again, and this time Lydia heard the double meaning. _Did you find out what's happening to me?_

Lydia opened her mouth to speak, but had to stop. Her throat was suddenly, painfully thick. She tried to clear it as the light flashed green, Deaton's parting words playing on her mind: _Death is a dark and dangerous energy, Lydia. You of all people should know it's nothing to play with. I won't say it's wrong of you to look for answers, but be careful how deep you go to find them._ "I'm not sure. But...I think I have a theory."

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End file.
